Thursday, January 5, 2012

Is Ron Paul a leftist?

Over at The American Spectator, Jeffrey Lord is whooping it up because Ron Paul didn't win the Iowa caucus. In Lord's view, Iowa Republicans stood up for conservatism - which to him, means perpetual war:

As this is written, either Santorum or Romney are first, the other second. Between them that's about 50% of the vote to Ron Paul's 25% or so.

Which clearly means that no matter how Congressman Paul -- a good and decent man with a wildly left-wing foreign policy -- spins the results, his ideas have taken a thorough beating. His candidacy and his controversial foreign policy views have effectively been sent packing.

As well they should. There is nothing remotely historically conservative about Paul's views.

Congressman Paul is partly to blame for this perception. He effectively endorsed this view at the Sioux City debate on December 15. The moderator accused Paul of "running left of President Obama on the issue of Iran" because he, unlike Santorum and Bachmann, had ruled out a pre-emptive war. This was Paul's great chance to make mincemeant of the notion that conservatism equals war, and leftism, peace, but he let it slip away.

It was the Neocons who redefined conservatism as the aggressive use of force to promote "democracy." George W. Bush justified his invasion of Iraq as part of the "global democratic revolution." The so-called "Neoconservatives" evolved (mutated?) from leftists who smuggled their revolutionary ideology inside conservative language. Thus, it became possible to appeal to such conservative values as patriotism and honor to promote leftist goals.

No wonder so many liberals were dazzled by this new rhetoric. In addition to leftists such as Christopher Hitchens, Dianne Feinstein, and Alan Dershowitz, the liberal media fell into line to back Bush's Iraqi war. In 2002, when "shock and awe" was still a glimmer in Donald Rumsfeld's eye, NPR featured this report entitled, "Bush's National Security Strategy", with TALK OF THE NATION host Neal Conan and NPR correspondent Mike Schuster:

SHUSTER: So they're tying notions of liberty that come from the way the United States emerged into the world and the values that have operated in the United States for more than 200 years. And they're saying that the expansion of those ideas is in the national security of the United States.

CONAN: It's a pretty idealistic thought in a way.

SHUSTER: Yes.

Yes, isn't that idealistic? And what a seductive dialectic of liberalism and conservatism. Or, more accurately, tough-talking patriotism at the service of liberalism.

In fact, the use of force to usher in liberty is a completely leftist notion. It's the world view of anarchists and communists, not conservatives, who know that liberty is a natural outgrowth of culture. Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, knew that rights came from "longstanding custom and practice" rather than theory or from outside imposition.

In fact, conservatives realize that war is more likely to lead to tyranny and chaos, not liberty. Senator Robert Taft expressed the traditional conservative position on war when he said, "No foreign policy can be justified except a policy devoted to the protection of the American people, with war only as the last resort and only to preserve that liberty." Many well-known conservatives opposed Bush's wars for just that reason, including Patrick Buchanan, Samuel Francis, Thomas Fleming, Joe Sobran, Charley Reese [a League of the South member], Jude Wanniski, Eric Margolis, and Taki Theodoracopulos. They were condemned as "unpatriotic conservatives" by the war party's mouthpieces.

Instead of promoting liberty, DC's wars have given us The PATRIOT Act, which authorized warrantless wiretaps, and the National Defense Authorization Act, which claims the government can arrest Americans and hold them INDEFINITELY without bringing charges against them. Perpetual war has constructed an all-powerful government with an unbreakable grip on our lives and property.

Do they mean the Reagan who pulled the troops out of Lebanon? Who only invaded Grenada? Who for the rest of the the time only had a few isolated air and naval engagements? The Reagan who made peace with the USSR? I think that would be closer to Paul's non interventionism than what the Neo Cons want.

Old Rebel, Your commentary is a little confusing. You state that "liberty is the natural outgrowth of culture" and that rights come from "longstanding custom and practice." My question is? Is this the Leagues position?

"The South’s political ideals and principles are rooted in the Jeffersonian tradition as expressed in the Declaration of Independence. Namely, that our unalienable rights are a gift from God, not privileges that are granted or denied by any governmental authority; that a truly free people has the right and power to determine its own form of government; that governmental power should reside as close to the people as possible and that competing governmental bodies should have meaningful checks on one another’s use of power."